From No to No comment

NZ First Leader Winston Peters refused to answer questions about his ugly parliamentary put-down of his rogue former MP Brendan Horan in his first day back after making the comment a week ago.

Reacting to a series of interruptions from Mr Horan, who is running a campaign against his former political mentor, Mr Peters had referred to him in the House as “the Jimmy Savile of New Zealand politics”. British broadcaster Savile was accused after his death of child sex abuse.

Mr Peters avoided reporters on the way from the House after offering the insult but was back yesterday. Asked what he meant by the comment his response was “next question” which he gave 10 more times to follow up questions.

So he cowers behind parliamentary privilege. Such a nasty piece of work. If he said outside the House, what he said inside, he would be facing the largest defamation suit in New Zealand’s history I’d say.

mandk

PaulP

I know it’s a slippery slope as where do you draw the line but there should be limits on parliamentary privilege so it does not cover personal abuse and defamation that is not related to any policy or legislative debate.

Just a minute – Didn’t Whaleoil virtually accuse Horan of inappropriate sexual activity with young girls? The link to that article has been posted several times on here.

Saville was never convicted, only accused. Therefore he is NOT a child abuser by law – so calling someone the ‘Jimmy Saville’ does not imply that they are.

Horan was never convicted, only accused (by Whaleoil).

Technically, like it or not, the old dog is right – Horan, having been accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour by Whaleoil, makes him ‘the Jimmy Saville of politics’ or a person in politics that has been accused of sexual impropriety.

The problem is, Winston has not clarified exactly what he meant, and he won’t, because he doesn’t have to, and MP’s seem to think they are not responsible to anyone but themselves. But – on a technicality – he is right (in a weird and very wrong sort of way).

freedom101

Time for John Key to rule out working with this vagabond, thereby consigning him to irrelevancy and a plunge below 5%. This souffle surely cannot rise three times. This would also leave Cunliffe alone trying to explain why and how he would work with Winston.

queenstfarmer

Oh believe me, I am not the least bit impressed with what Winston did either. I am appalled at the name calling and personal attacks by many MP’s as well. I think it reduces the state of our parliament to kindergarten level, and these are meant to be mature upstanding examples – I think it stinks.

The link to that article was posted in threads a couple of times last week – it was an article Whaleoil had in the Truth about Horan and painted a picture of a man with no restraint.

The fact is, like it or not – if Winston is held to explain – technically he could use that excuse – Jimmy Saville was accused of all sorts of sexual impropriety (yes some of it children, but there were also teenagers involved). Winston only needs to play the ‘Jimmy Saville’ meant someone ‘accused’ card, and he is correct – whether he is ‘right’ as in behaving in a manner becoming to a MP, is an entirely different argument.

Oh no doubts, Winston was having a hissy fit and shot his mouth off. I’m not defending him, just warning that if it was to become a big issue in the house – Winston has a ‘factual’ out. Jimmy Saville was never convicted of any sexual impropriety – only accused and never charged – those people who automatically apply the false title of pedophile to him – are actually no better – the man could have been innocent – we do not know.

(Very interesting to see how many of us – myself and MP’s included – insisted on immediately applying the accusation of a pedophile as a certainty though!) We hear the name Jimmy Saville and we automatically have him convicted. The power of the spoken word huh?

Tarquin North

Either Winston has realised if you’re in a hole stop digging – a rare trait for a politician, or he forgot what he said. I would normally go with option one, but the way he’s been carrying on lately it could be caused by anything from alcohol to martians using telepathy.

martinh

JUdith
True, but its hard to imagine what other meaning Winston could of meant.
Impossible anyone who watches the news or reads the news websites could of missed the news about the allegations him in the last few years

Sir Cullen's Sidekick

David Garrett

I find myself in the most unusual position of agreeing with Judith @ 10.33…Peters indeed COULD play the “Savile was accused but never convicted of sex crimes…Horan has been accused…” card… but I suspect he is very loathe to “go there” for fear of what might slip out of his mouth if he started engaging with journos on the issue…

Either way, it is quite clear he is misusing parliamentary privilege to make a slur he is not prepared to repeat outside the House…that is not the purpose of parliamentary privilege….the Professor from the frozen south would no doubt make a much better fist of explaining its purpose than me…

Most certainly splitting hairs, you are right, BUT any disciplinary action would have to deal with FACTS. The facts are clear, Jimmy Saville was never convicted, and has the status of innocent. Any suggestion that he was is speculation. He had been accused – just as many other men have been. That does not mean he was guilty.

Splitting hairs or not – Winston did not clarify his name calling and if asked to – I suspect he will simply say he meant that Horan was accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour. He would win on facts – despite us all knowing differently!

I Say Look Here

Winston in his prime would never have put himself in a position of having to say “next question” on replay to the gathered throng of media. Not the way he rolls. He would have turned the heat around, ripping the heads off the reporters for asking the question before setting off on his own tangential tirade.

Reckon this might just be some sort of ugly awakening for the wee man. He’s not what he was, and that look on his face says he’s finally realised it. You can just feel his pain, can’t you?

Question is, how many of The Following will get onto it before September? Some will, surely?

Savilles ‘victims’ varied in age, and whilst some where underage, there were some that were over-age and even over 20.

There is no crime of ‘pedophilia’, that is a cause not an actual crime.

As I said, unless someone had asked Winston to explain his name calling, and he had said he was implying that Horan was a pedophile – there isn’t a factual leg for anyone to stand on. I don’t like it either, but the facts are the facts.

David Garrett

martinh: That is my recollection also…the Truth article referred to threesomes and group sex, but not, as I recall, any allegations of sex with anyone underage. That notwithstanding, Peters could still dance on the head of a pin, and claim – as others have noted – that what he meant was both Savile and Horan had been accused of sexual impropriety…but he won’t do that, because he knows he is not as mentally agile as he was, and he may blurt out something that is actionable.

I am happy to see that people think that covering up is a disgrace
hopefully one day you may agree that it is a disgrace that the government has covered up corruption .

I see that Winston is the only person who is trying to expose corruption and hold the government accountable.

again we shoot the messenger, I very mush suspect that Horan ha been offered a deal to attack Winston because of the danger he poses if NZ first gets 5% of the vote . The corruption in New Zealand relies on keeping Winston out.

altiora

@ Judith. Whether Saville was convicted or not is of no moment. Whether defamation is made out depends on whether the reasonable person would consider Horan’s reputation has been defamed by the remark. The reasonable person would take Peters’ statement as implying that Horan had committed sexual acts similar to those Saville allegedly committed.

well who else is questioning corruption ? he may not be squeaky clean in some peoples eyes but I dont see any convictions for him .

no one else is asking questions re corruption ,a common tactic is to attack those who do.

I am not here to judge Winston and what I think of him is immaterial .

if you think he is corrupt why not lay a private prosecution like Penny Bright did for John Banks she got he evidence together and its now on a home run .

If you believe he is guilty why not lay a charge yourself its a free society do your bit but dont accuse where you are not prepared to follow through and especially not when you are hiding behind an assumed name.

you are out of touch with the way defamation works in New Zealand I can tell you from experience that
1. you allege defamation
2. strike out the defence of truth and honest opinion
3. because the defence is stuck out tell the court that there is no possible defence
4. proceed straight to quantum

that’s how its done folks int he open transparent and accountable method of justice In NZ. I can vouch that this happens it cost me nearly $100,000 in costs and penalties and then there is nothing in the world that you can do to get the decision reversed.

altiora

anticorruptionz: I am a lawyer, discussing the case law and actually I have lectured in the topic of defamation. So not quite as ignorant as you think. You are talking about procedure. There is a difference. And no, your summary is incorrect. IO am not sure what you mean by “strike out” and quite who is doing the “striking out”. Sounds awfully like an undefended proceedings you are describing.

I’ve just come from the PQ thread where I stated my belief that there is indeed corruption in NZ that needs rooting out.

I once joined NZ First because, as a journalist, I had seen too much corruption go unchecked and had been the victim of some of it. Since leaving NZF I fell victim to another example of it.

But yes, we need in this case to shoot the messenger. To knowingly falsely accuse someone of an act, knowing that most people would find that person utterly repugnant if they believed that accusation, is inexcusable.

Furthermore, it is itself a form of corruption: misusing a power granted to just 120 out of 4 million of us, to advance his own political agenda.

It is precisely because we need to stand firm against corruption that we must demand Peters resign over this, or throw him out of Parliament at the first opportunity, as the voters wisely did with Ron Mark after he uttered a similar slur.

There are others of us willing to continue the fight against corruption – a fight Winston hasn’t seriously pursued for over a decade anyway – and if the public aren’t smart enough to see the need for that outside of just electing Winston, then they’ll certainly get the government they deserve.

To stand at his side now, excusing his own corruption in the hope he may reawaken his interest in that of others, is hypocrisy of the highest order.

ross411

Cunningham (795 comments) says:
May 29th, 2014 at 10:24 am
Winston offers nothing good to NZ. He is just a pathetic old man whose only goal is to stir up hatred. The sooner he goes the better.

But, he had the best for us in mind when he had his party, and himself, push his partner’s employer’s drug on us. I’d love another link to gratuitously quote that gave as much detail about his TAB conflict of interest I’ve seen mentioned here in the past.

altiora

Rex W the last thing we need is anti-corruption nutcases wasting taxpayer and court resources with their tiresome campaigns. They are the flip side of the political charlatans in the House. Like the charlatans, these so called crusaders treat our democracy as a stage on which to strut their huge egos, decked out in their own self-importance and bathed in the limelight of media attention. Normal well-adjusted people like me just want to be rid of them and all the blights on our democracy.

mara

Laila la la.? No. She is more cunning than Dotcom who does not really “get” politics here. He has been badly advised. She now has funding and audience to advance her lefty ideas and fuck Dotcom who will soon be extradited. She will step over dead bodies to gain traction. She and Hone know that the fat German will soon be gone. It is what happens after that matters. And this unholy alliance opens the door.